Media devices, such as set-top boxes, are configured to receive media content events (referred to herein interchangeably as a “program”) from a broadcasting system. Non-limiting examples of media content events include movies, news programs, sporting events, serial comedies or dramas, and other thematic-based media content events. Media content events may also include advertisements, commercials or the like. Media content events may include one or more of video, audio, still images, text, and the like.
The media content events may be communicated to the media device by a program service provider over the broadcasting system. Non-limiting examples of broadcasting systems include satellite systems, cable or other wire-based systems, or over the air (OTA) broadcasting systems. Media content events may also be accessed from other sources, such as a web site or an on-demand content source via the Internet or other suitable communication system.
A legacy electronic program guide (EPG) may be used to present program viewing selection choices to a user. The legacy EPG has the look and feel of a table that uses a combination of text and/or symbols to indicate the program viewing choices that may be selected by the user. The legacy EPG is a type of a user interface that presents a menu, or a series of menus, that describe available programs that are available for presentation.
Typically, the legacy EPG is arranged as a table or grid. Each row of the table corresponds to a particular program provider (e.g., channel, station). The columns of the table correspond to particular time blocks. Each inner cell of the table identifies a particular program that is being broadcast during the corresponding time block.
Legacy EPGs are inherently limited in the amount of information that can be presented at a single moment by the size (dimensions) of the display that is presenting the legacy EPG to a user. In particular, the number of channels and time blocks is limited by the height and width of the display, respectively. Also, channels are arranged in a largely arbitrary manner, such that channels that are of interest to a particular user are not necessarily presented near one another, possibly requiring a considerable amount of scrolling to move between channels of interest.
A video mosaic is another type of user interface for presenting information about available programming. A video mosaic is typically a grid-based arrangement of tiles that each present information about an available program. Each tile presents information about a corresponding program, such as the program name, running time, video trailer, or the like.
Prior art video mosaics are limited in that they can only provide a relatively small amount of information. For example, a basic video mosaic may simply be a rearrangement of information that would be presented on a single page of a legacy EPG, such as a selection of programs coming from a sequence of channels (e.g., channels 1-12) and broadcasting at a particular time (e.g., 9:30 PM). In this way, the video mosaic is little better than the legacy EPG, and indeed may even be worse, because the video mosaic may not be able to present the even the same amount of information as the legacy EPG, because the tiles of the video mosaic may be larger than the corresponding cells of the EPG.